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Finding (In)Fluency

By Selma Zaki

Three years ago, I moved to New York City to pursue my master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling at Teachers College, Columbia University. I had moved from Lebanon after graduating with a BA from the American University of Beirut. Most of my education in Lebanon had been through Western and American institutions. Thus, I did not expect my educational experience in the U.S. to be vastly different; I was not completely wrong. That being said, one noticeable difference between both educational experiences is that there appeared to be more room at Teachers College for students to express their thoughts and feelings around sensitive topics such as gender, race and class. Hence, through class dialogues and discussions, TC offered students an opportunity to exchange ideas and thoughts with one another, and also encouraged them to look within and examine their own identities and narratives.

Special Edition: 70th Anniversary of the Nakba

INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL EDITION

By Lara Sheehi

I am honored to be the guest editor of this special edition of the Psychoanalyst Activist which commemorates the 70th Anniversary of the Nakba. Nakba, or “the Catastrophe” is the Arabic term that refers to the dispossession of more than 700,000 Palestinians in 1948 by Zionist forces.

Seventy years later, Trump’s White House contravened long standing international norms, UN Security Counsel Resolutions, and official US policy by moving the United States Embassy to Jerusalem. Finding kindred political visions with the ethno-nationalist Netanyahu regime, Trump’s administration punctuated the prejudice of this unilateral decision by announcing that the United States embassy in Jerusalem will be inaugurated on the anniversary date of the Nakba.

Past-President’s Column 2018

By Lynne Layton

I haven’t yet had much time to settle into the role of past-president of Section IX, in part because it’s only been a week from the end of my term to the beginning of writing this column, but perhaps even more so because I don’t feel any diminishment in my commitment to the Section. There is SO much work to be done. But how to contribute to that work in this different role? I’ll begin to try to figure that out by talking about what these past two years of working with all of you have brought to me personally and politically.

Trump’s Pathology Is Also His Brand

By Stephen J. Ducat

The Problem of Diagnosis

Debates rage in the increasingly politicized world of mental health clinicians about how to name and understand Trump’s evident psychopathology. Is he a narcissistic psychopath, a psychopathic narcissist, or simply a ruthless con man who managed to grift his way into business and then into the White House?

There are those cautious souls that still abide by the “Goldwater Rule” a proscription against clinicians diagnosing politicians and others in public life who haven’t been interviewed directly. This was an attempt by the American Psychiatric Association to prevent the kind of reductive and politically motivated pathologizing that was directed against Barry Goldwater in the 1960 presidential campaign. As it turns out, the rule was an overreaching corrective for an overreaching use of diagnosis. We have a wealth of data on what those in public life do and say in the world, something we don’t have access to with our patients. Although patients behave in certain ways in the context of treatment, we can only speculate how that translates to other relational contexts.

Nazism, Chaos, and Order

By Neil Altman

It took me a long time to recognize the psychological significance of national identity. I remember staring at the title of Vamik Volkan’s Killing in the Name of Identity and, while recognizing the phenomenon of identity, wondering why it was such a big deal, so big as to prompt murder. At the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I remember thinking, with wonder, that a few miles at the border between Alberta or Saskatchewan and North Dakota or Montana would make the difference between fierce support of, or indifference to, or skepticism about, the invasion. The election of Donald Trump has brought home to

Electoral College Map 2016

me the significance of national identity, and not only because his election was concrete evidence of nationalism, or rather white nationalism, in the United States. As my illusions about the virtue of the United States, about which I had been intellectually skeptical for many years, melted away, I experienced a depression that showed me how much my own sense of goodness depended on my identification with an imaginary national group inspired by virtuous values. Continue article

The Commodification of Loss: The integration of a capitalist critique into clinical work.

By Karen Maroda

I am a liberal, as were both my parents. In fact, my father, forced to leave high school after the Depression and work in a factory to help support his family, organized the first union in that factory. On the verge of being fired or beaten, he was happily drafted into the Army. He never overtly subscribed to any particular ideology, but made it clear that laws of common decency were not often followed when it came to business and the distribution of wealth. (He became self-employed when the war ended.)

Coming from this background, I have always been interested in critiques of our materialistic society, even though I admittedly succumb to some of the guilty pleasures of middle class suburban life. I try to limit my purchases and encourage my patients to look at what they are feeling when they experience the sudden need to buy something. Yet I cannot honestly say that anything I have read about capitalism has informed my clinical work beyond encouraging some measure of self-awareness regarding the urge to buy.

Memory, Mourning and Manhood in A Lie of the Mind, A Play by Sam Shepard

By Jan Haaken

Years ago I was invited to speak at the University of Pittsburgh Repertory Theatre after a performance of Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind. The play invites reflection on remembering and forgetting, and human complicity in the varies lies of history—topics at the center of my own work as a psychoanalytic psychologist and feminist scholar. After Sam Shepard’s death on July 30th, I thought again about this wonderful man and the enormity of his contribution to the world. And in returning to some of the ideas in that talk in Pittsburgh, I hope to pay tribute to Shepard by showing his deep affinity with feminist critiques of manhood—and with psychoanalytic ways of thinking about human memory. My alliterative title—memory, mourning and manhood— serves as a structuring device in working through key motifs in the play. I also speculate on how our responses to the play are shaped by the historical moment, having lived through a period of heightened American nationalism. It may be useful to enlist Shepard’s work to reflect on current national failures to remember the violence in our political past and how this failure to remember is related to a refusal to mourn.

This edition is a unique one for us. It involves a collaborative project of several voices sharing their concerns about the current Presidential administration in the United States. Entitled the First 100 Days, the concerns each author shares are diverse, and show a breadth of what is under attack. All told, we have had 33 submissions. If you have not already looked through them, please do check them out.

One exciting project underway at the Psychoanalytic Activist involves a writing mentorship program. In the Spring of 2016, Nadine Obeid and I realized the desire for younger clinicians to be mentored, and we announced a Writing Mentorship. This project pairs a writing mentee with a more experienced writer to help them grow in their psychoanalytic and cultural sensibility. Today, we have our first published result of one of these mentorship relationships. Eva Blodgett has written a piece focusing on the way a student status can further reify the split present in psychoanalysis between clinical work and politics. I am grateful for her hard work and her mentor’s Steven Botticelli’s patient thoughtfulness.

Our next piece is written by Stephanie Heck and discusses our societies failure to attend to parent’s psychological changes. She argues this failure serves to perpetuate intergenerational trauma. Stephanie asks, when will we attend to the changes parents undergo in psychological development, to help create a kinder more empathic society?

It is true that the work of those that contributed to the works listed above is extensive, painstaking and difficult. I would like to thank those who have contributed so much, certainly all the authors, but also our Assistant and Associate editors. Our wonderful Assistant editors include Macy Wilson, Andrea Recarte, and Maria Christoff. Our Associate editors for this edition include Lara Sheehi, Batsirai Bvunzawabaya, and Karen Rosica. Without these editors we would not have as robust a newsletter as we do.

If you enjoy our newsletter, please consider writing something. Contributions are what keep us growing. Any ideas for submissions should be sent to Matthew LeRoy at matthewleroypsyd@gmail.com

Thank you all and hope you enjoy!

President’s Column 2017

By Lynne Layton

President of Section IX

How to begin? Perhaps with something I often have heard my mother say in her later years: “Oy! I’ve lived too long!” As one who grew up in the somewhat egalitarian (for aspiring white folks) 50s and went to school while the social movements of the 50s, 60s and early 70s were taking shape, I feel as horrified by the Trump administration’s early days as my mother felt when Ronald Reagan began to dismantle the welfare state initiated by her beloved Franklin D. Roosevelt. The very word “president” is operating for me as a trigger, which may have something to do with why I’ve procrastinated writing this column.

At Pacifica Graduate Institute, where we proudly maintain a privileged stance for “depth” psychologies (all psychologies that acknowledge the presence of the unconscious), the election results unusually disrupted and disturbed an otherwise common tendency for all of us to freely engage in political and cultural discourse. The emotional charge of our discussions, paired with the pervasive impact of the election results on the lives of ourselves, clients, and communities, ignited.

Raising a Better World

By Stephanie Heck

Contributor

It is commonly accepted that a person’s mental world is formed in very early childhood and remains stable throughout their life. Beginning in the late 1950s with the work of Harry Harlow, and, later, that of John Bowlby, the field of psychology has introduced and elaborated the phenomenon of attachment; which has, in turn, shaped the way that our society understands the critical importance of the parent-child relationship. Attachment theory helped us to understand the vital role of human connection in shaping a child’s development. We know now that physical contact and social relatedness is crucial in order for a child to develop in healthy ways. In fact, society has accepted this developmental necessity to the point where there are popular models of parenting that use it as a foundation (i.e., attachment parenting).

To Speak or Not to Speak: Is Political Speech and Engagement the Privilege of Licensed Clinicians?

By Eva Blodgett

Writing Mentee

In the tumultuous post election times, daily news of gun related violence, heated political rhetoric regarding various issues such as immigration, economics, and the foreign relations, it has been impossible to remain politically impartial, non reactive and unaffected. I closely follow the political news, listen to political analyses, and engage in heated discussions with friends and family. I consider myself an active and engaged citizen, except when I step outside my home and my social environment and put on a hat of a fledging clinician who is still a graduate student navigating the life of dissertation concerns, endless internship hours, and attempts to balance self care vs. patient care vs. requirements of internship sites and supervisors. The identity of an active political citizen takes a step back, disengages, and, at times, disappears altogether. Clinical concerns, patients’ lives, the time spent honing case formulations and analyzing transferential relationships take over silencing the part that wonders how patients, supervisors, and colleagues are affected by the socio political scene and who questions our role in it. Many times, this wondering part does not dare to come out gauging that the level of safety is not adequate. Other times, it adopts the attitudes and views of my supervisors who, for the most part, exclusively focus on clinical issues detaching them from their socio political contexts.

Member Spotlight: Nancy Burke

By Karen Rosica

Associate Editor

Nancy Burke is on the board of an organization called Expanded Mental Health Services, (EMHS-NFP). This organization, as Nancy told me, “had the privilege” of creating a psycho-dynamically-oriented clinic called The Kedzie Center in an underserved neighborhood in Chicago.

First 100 Days Project

With the inauguration of Donald J. Trump, the United States enters into uncertain times. This reality is specifically true as it relates to the future of progressive movements. Some of us reassure ourselves that President Trump said certain things to get elected, and that he does not really believe them. We grow more anxious as we look at the selections for his cabinet, a collection of lascivious businessmen, Christian social conservatives, and neo-fascist populists. In today’s America, there is so much to fear, not from without, but from within our body politic. At the Psychoanalytic Activist, we would like to explore these myriad fears, and plan on doing so with several contributors sharing their concerns about the future. These will be conducted in brief format, largely jargon free to be as accessible as possible. Continue to First 100 Days Articles.

Full Letter of Apology to the Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian People, from Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility, Section 9 of Division 39, the Division of Psychoanalysis, American Psychological Association

The United States is a settler colonial nation that grew wealthy, in part, by the theft and despoiling of Native American land and culture. The Standing Rock protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline is a movement resisting the further theft, loss and despoliation, which makes the present moment an important one in which to speak out against the longstanding harm afflicted on native peoples, including much psychological harm. As members of Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility (Section 9 of the division of psychoanalysis, Division 39, of the American Psychological Association), we respectfully offer a full apology to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians, and we stand in solidarity with the Standing Rock resistance movement.

The discrimination and traumas Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians have suffered include abusive assimilation efforts, such as forced relocation and boarding schools, and lack of voting rights and religious freedom well into the 20th century. Continue article.

2016 as Turning Point: Psychoanalysts Can No Longer Be Silent on Political Issues and Remain Competent

The world is on fire and we need psychoanalysts, in particular, to help reestablish faith in humanity’s ability to cope and recover. Psychoanalysts can no longer pretend that the world does not enter the consulting room. It’s crashing in.

Over the last 30 years a particular form of irrationality has become dominant at the crossroads of daily life and the political/economic sphere. Simply put, there is a gap between what needs to be done about our problems, and what the current political system presents as “possible.” It has become clear that it is no longer rational to believe that the current global political/economic system is capable of addressing these crises. Climate change, the failure/dominance of austerity economics and resulting inequality, and global mainstreaming of hatred all pose immediate threats and palpable changes to experience in daily life. These are the most urgent problems of our time— likely of all time—and they are being met by either disavowal/disbelief from the political right, or transparently insufficient solutions from the left. Continue article.

Subversive Storytelling

By Jan Haaken

During a stint as visiting professor at the London School of Economics (LSE) in 2014, I met weekly with a group of activist doctoral students who were working with narrative material in their field research. We came together out of our shared interest in thinking critically about the role of stories in movements for social change, and of generating methods to identify our own blindspots in social action research. Although most students in the group were not psychoanalytic, we found common ground in theoretical traditions that attend to aspects of mind and society that are cast to the margins, whether the social or political margins or the margins of consciousness. Enlisting a term I have used in my previous work, we decided to call our new website Subversive Storytelling. I describe that term here through the lens of my work as a as a psychoanalytically-informed filmmaker and field researcher. Continue article.

Can You See Me? The American Adolescent of Arab Descent

By Lama Z. Khouri

Introduction

I was invited by the president of Section IX of Division 39 of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Lynne Layton, to share with you, the readers of the Psychoanalyst Activist Newsletter, my thoughts about an organization I founded a few years ago, the Circle Of Arab Students In Schools (Circle OASIS). The purpose of the organization is to help middle- and high-school–age students who are first- or second-generation immigrants from the Arab world adjust to school and life in the United States.

When I began writing this essay, I thought I would start by placing the population I work with, American adolescents of Arab descent, in the sociopolitical context of present-day America: I thought I would tell you about the racism, discrimination, and alienation they experience. My first draft was peppered with statistics, results of studies about this population, and the sociopolitical dynamics that frame their experiences. I decided, however, to refer you to my previous writings on the topic (Khouri, 2012, 2013, 2016). Instead, I would like to share with you the personal journey that led me to founding Circle OASIS—a journey that dates back to 2004, when I began making my way into the mental health field. Continue article

A Conversation About Section IX: Present Work and the Future.

Like many inquiries these days, it started with a Google search. It was the fall of 2013 and I had just begun my first semester in the George Washington (GW) University PsyD program. With a career that began in community organizing now taking a clinical and psychodynamic turn, I wanted to know who else was linking these worlds. Google seemed like a good enough place to start and I’m pretty sure the search terms that day were “psychoanalysis” and “activism”— if you’re reading this now, you already know where that search led me.

Emboldened by my awareness of Section IX, I took my search offline and met with Richard Ruth, PhD, a GW Associate Professor, profiled in the April 2013 issue of the Psychoanalytic Activist, who became a supervisor and mentor in my program, and, in 2015, with Lara Sheehi, PsyD, also a GW Associate Professor and Section IX Member at Large, whose close mentorship led me to seek out Section IX at the 2016 Spring meeting in Atlanta. It was Lara who connected me with Nancy Hollander (past president), Lynne Layton, (current president), and Matt LeRoy, (Editor of Psychoanalytic Activist).

From current Section IX’s President, Lynne Layton: I will soon be sending you some amendments to our by-laws for your approval (they need first to go to the voting board). But I want to hear from you on substantive things as well. What projects would you like to see Section IX undertake? Last year, we had readings go out once a month — there wasn’t much conversation but we heard from many people that they appreciated getting such fine articles. Do you want something like that to continue? Might you be interested in starting a community project on the model of Reflective Spaces/Material Places? Do you see other ethical or educational or political projects that we might take up? Are you interested in being on the board? If so, you might want to come to this year’s meeting.

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